Maternity Leave?

Yesterday I took the plunge and spoke to my firm about "returning" after Maternity Leave.

The call started off well enough with some random pleasantries about how things are in the office, how the office move went, who the new hires are (two guys-- I guess they finally wised up after 5 of the women in the department all became moms during the same calendar year...) and of course an always encouraging description of how work just got so busy that Partner had to cancel his vacation.

To get to the nitty gritty, I think it's pretty standard in the New York Market for folks (and when I say folks I mean women-- because god forbid a lawfirm would let a man take off for more than thirty seconds if they have managed to find a free moment to reproduce...) to get 3 months paid leave and up to 3 months unpaid leave. Alas, though my firm is an "international/national" firm, god forbid they could be market.

Encouraging though it was for one of my co-workers (who had her baby in April) to advise that she was able to swing an extra 3 months of leave.

I mention this to Partner and he basically does the plausible deniability thing and claims he knows nothing of Co-Worker's status. In one breath I'm told how Partner will try very hard to get me whatever it is that I want and when I say 3 months unpaid leave (with an offer to be available on a project basis if needed during the year end-crunch) then in Partner's next breath it becomes clear that three months wasn't what he was looking for. I guess he was hoping for just a request for part-time? (Isn't that worse?) Maybe he was hoping that I'd just ask for my office to be moved closer to the coffee maker (noting that I don't drink coffee) or better yet, perhaps that I'd just ask to take a vacation at Christmas (since end-of-year vacations are always verboten in our department??) Or, most easily accomplished, a new chair (got one already) or a request for some fancy Bic pens to be ordered for me from Staples? Clearly, 3 months unpaid leave was asking too much. I could go back and offer 60%, 100% from home, but I doubt they'd take on that challenge.